The Internet penetration in the last two decades has led to a gradual growth of online retail. In 2013 the UK alone had more than 500 million internet orders, which translates to £3 billion. In 2014 the total online retail market grew by 20% and it's estimated to grow by 17% in 2015. Clearly online retail directly impact parcel shipment industry such as postal services and courier services such as Federal Express (FedEx), United Parcel Services (UPS), or the like.
Most parcel delivery services, thousands of parcels are shipped every day from hundreds or thousands of departure locations to hubs, and then redistributed and delivered to thousands locations. In many cases, parcels have committed delivery times. Most courier companies utilize automated equipment for distribution and information related to the processing and delivering parcels within shipment deadlines.
Indeed automation improved the domestic distribution process, yet the international distribution process is falling behind due the customs bottleneck. Most parcels are subject to customs regulations, which defer from country to country, meaning that each parcel must be evaluated to determine whether customs inspection is necessary. If inspection is necessary, the parcel must be diverted to a customs hub for inspection and then routed back to the distribution process. Typically, foreign origin parcels must be segregated from the domestic parcels prior to inspection. This typically requires that the parcel delivery company maintain a separate area for processing foreign origin parcels separate from its area for processing domestic parcels.
Since customs inspection procedures are mainly manual operations multiplied by hundred s of thousand of foreign parcels a day becomes a nuisance. These manual selection followed by manual inspection, re-routing, and reporting can delay shipping deadlines, increase shipment cost, contribute human errors and entirely dependent on labor subjected to union dictation.